10 Oct 2011

Alright, here we go, week 2 in Yasufuruichi!

There is a ton of work to do here in Yasufuruichi, but it's totally worth it.  We got our Home Teaching list (I think 15 people or so) and they are all Less Active members that we are working on finding time to meet.  Japan is a lot slower paced than America and you can't really just call up and see if you can drop by for a visit, you really have to plan things out weeks or even months ahead if you want any sort of attendance there.  Meeting people here has become that much more difficult, but that much more rewarding when we do.  Today we're spending most of the day with a Brother Shrubb who served here 20 years ago and we're going to his son's basketball game together.  He has been inactive for the past 5 years or so, but recently he's been coming back and hopefully soon with all this reactivation he will bring his family with him as well. 

So, trying to meet everybody means that I have been making a lot of phone calls.  Beckstrand 長老 helps out too, but I think I've made more phone calls this past week than I have pretty much my entire life.  We straight up spent a couple of hours the other day contacting former investigators, potential investigators, investigators, less actives, and members to figure out times to meet up with them.  As hard as it is to understand some people when they talk, add in a static-y phone and it becomes nigh impossible.  New favorite/most used term is すみませんもう一度いってください　Sumimasen, mouichido ittekudasai (Could you say that one more time please?) . 　

Recently all of our lessons have been amazing.  Many of the investigators who, I was told wouldn't progress, are now working hard and showing a desire to learn and understand more, and my love for them has been expanding, it's just amazing.  For one of our lessons with a guy who is completely devoted to video games and movies, I managed to use a metaphor for the gospel of Christ using Final Fantasy as the catalyst.  How exactly it worked I'm not sure, but he seemed to really grasp the concept.  Who knew?  The Holy Ghost can help you create ways for people to understand using any means possible, even through video games if it comes to that.  We also teach this one woman who is half Japanese and half American.  She speaks English a little better and so we teach in English.  She has some major problems in her life and I'm glad that we are able to give her Hope, the one thing she's been searching for her whole life. 

She made it with us to General Conference this past Saturday (It comes one week late here in Japan so that they have time to translate it all) and seemed to enjoy it very much!  She now has the Book of Mormon on CD (It's hard for her to read) and the spirit and testimony of the apostles and prophets to learn from!  How great is our privilege to hear straight from the man called of God to lead us in these modern days.  It's interesting, before the mission General Conference seemed to take forever, but this past weekend it just flew by.  My Notebook is now a couple of pages thicker and there's just so much that we get to study and learn, it's amazing.  You really can't just pick a single talk from Conference that really stands out above the rest, but I like stories, and man, did this past conference have some great stories.  President Monson and the Temple Dedication's surprise speaker; the story of the Titanic through the eyes of a group of missionaries and a nurse; mountain climbing with the family; swimming against an unforgiving current; a surprise visitor in the elevator when the world seems to be on your shoulders; and many others that we can learn and be edified from.  Go read the talks from Conference.  Visit LDS.org and print them out, pick your favorite, post it up on your wall, remember it, live it, and your life will change in ways you cannot even imagine!  So now the choice is yours, what is going to be your theme until next April? (Which I just realized, come next conference, I will have been on my mission for 1 year!??!)

This week our District's theme has been LOVE.  One of the most important things you can do for anybody that you teach is love them, and honor/sustain them.  Whatever you do, make sure you give them a piece of yourself, and show God's love for them through your love.  Our district is very young (our district leader is only on his 6th transfer and he is the 'oldest' missionary in the group)  So 6th transfer we have Stratford and on 5th transfer we have Bagley, Beckstrand, and Mitton (who was with Koyama in Tokuyama before I got there) then on 3rd Transfer there is Myself and Watanabe 長老 who is half Japanese and grew up in Florida.  We're are an interesting group, and I'm expecting great things from this group!

Oh, and Beckstrand 長老 and I tried to make brownies the other day, but in Japan there is no such thing as Jumbo eggs, and we had no pan the size we needed.... so our Brownies really became cookies, but they were darn good cookies.  At least everyone we gave them to liked them.  Also, we've been having cooking adventures in our apartment lately. We made fried chicken tenders, pancake funnel cake (totally by accident), deep fried oreos, gutted a fish, mixed various sauces that I'm sure weren't supposed to be mixed, oh man, this is a great companionship for cooking!  Who knows what we'll make, we certainly don't.

Well, I don't have much time, we're back in the internet cafe (we really have nowhere else to e-mail.....) and we have to pay by the 10 minutes, so I love you all, but not enough to have to pay for the next level up!  Well, maybe, but I'm already about done so I'll just end it. 

Go do cool things, wherever you are, and whatever you're doing, do it well, and wholeheartedly.  You will be rewarded at some point; the exciting thing is that you won't know when, the surprise will always be fun to find! 

I love you all 皆さん愛しています

エベレット長老

Elder Everett